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I started The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins on Friday. I finished the entire trilogy by Tuesday. I’m mourning the loss of the characters from my daily routine.

And lucky us (!) it's becoming a movie in March 2012.

Normally I really hate books like 1984, Anthem,and Alas,Babylon. The kind that are set in the future when the United States (or other countries, or the world) has more-or-less destroyed itself. Maybe I hate them so much because a) after studying anthropology, they don’t seem so far-fetched and b) because the rebel in me wants to offset how unnaturally much high school teachers LOVE those three books. Really, really love them. In any case, THG trilogy is the only exception.

I’m recommending everyone read it. More rationally, I think most twenty-something females would just eat it up. I can see guys, too, probably not as many. But this isn’t really a book review at all. More like a character gush. I need to gush about my favorite male character in any book, ever.

Peeta. Oh, man. He’s the quintessential love interest in the least quintessential romantic situation. That’s what makes him so great — he spends basically 2.5 books unconditionally loving the main character, who is only moderately fond of him. He loves her so much that he stays in her life while she maybe loves someone else (I could write a whole blog about how annoying Katniss Everdeen is). Then fights his way through insanity to come back to her even though she still hasn’t EVER told him she loves him.

The best part, really, is that Peeta has been loving her steadfastly since he was eleven. He loved her from a distance, and he remembered every detail about her. Even when he’s pitted against Katniss in The Hunger Games (2x over) where ‘tributes’ fight to the death, he offers his life willingly, so that she not only lives, but also doesn’t become a murderer.

When she asks him to stay with her during her nightmarish sleeps, he replies, “Always.”

CAN I JUST TELL YOU? >Spoiler<

She falls in love, too. On the last page of the trilogy.

I’ve never loved a character. There is nothing I don’t love about Peeta. No moment of anger, no foolish decision, no action at all that bothered me as a reader. I keep wondering if it’s because maybe his character was static. Or maybe he’s so great BECAUSE he’s static. He loved her. He loved her. He was insane. Then he loved her again. Unconditional love really is static. It’s static because unconditional means nothing can destroy it, it’s constant.